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Ive made this thread sticky, so everyone visiting the forum will see it.

__________________Shalom to everyone! No extremeis good. Neitherin religion, nor in science.
"If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence.. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel."
~ Golda Meir~

Quote:
“Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity is there only for tactical reasons. The establishment of a Palestinian state is a new expedient to continue the fight against Zionism and for Arab unity.”
–Zoheir Muhsin, head of the PLO Military Operations Department and member of the PLO Executive Council, 1977.

Quote:
“Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity is there only for tactical reasons. The establishment of a Palestinian state is a new expedient to continue the fight against Zionism and for Arab unity.”
–Zoheir Muhsin, head of the PLO Military Operations Department and member of the PLO Executive Council, 1977.

This is the sort of factual information that Israel has to get out to the Western general public.

Until I joined this forum, my only knowlege of Israel/M.E. political issues was what was in the mainly (pro-Palestinian) left-wing media.

Israel needs to become more media savvy, I must admit recently on cable T.V. there have been some more balanced reports on Israel/M.E., but more needs to be done.

Telling lies to further the jihad -- as Muhammad said, "War is deceit."

"PA Libel: Israel tried to burn down Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969," by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook for Palestinian Media Watch, March 15:

As Palestinians continue almost daily rioting in Jerusalem and other cities, claiming Israel is damaging places holy to Islam, the Palestinian Authority has chosen to rekindle another libel whose goal seems to be to increase the unrest and rioting. This renewed libel is based on a rewriting of history by the Palestinian Authority, accusing Israel of assisting in the arson attack in the Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969.

The facts of the case were as follows: A non-Jewish Australian started a fire in the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Aug. 21, 1969. The fire was extinguished and the damage was repaired.
More than ten years ago the Palestinian Authority initiated the lie that Israel was involved in the arson or that it Jew who started the fire with the Israeli government's help. The libel was revived this week with this slide broadcast on PA TV:

Text on top: "Israeli aggression against the holy places"

Text in middle: "And on Aug. 21, 1969, the Jew Dennis Michael set fire to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, with the support of the Jewish government, which cut off the water supply from the neighborhoods close to the Al-Aqsa Mosque with a view to delaying the operations to extinguish [the fire]."

Text on bottom: "Aggression against the holy places - the occupation: a long history of defiling and desecrating that which is sacred."

[PA TV (Fatah), March 5, 2010]...

Meanwhile, Pamela Geller does some historical investigation and finds that this sort of incitement has happened before.

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

And this is probably from the same minds that blew up that huge historically valuable statuary in one of the 'stans. (Can't remember where or what.) There is now a huge anti-islamic sentiment running through indiginous Europe. Several European societies are annoyed with the minarets and the calls that issue from them.

Yes-but in EU(France Britain Germany...and swiss have forbidden the singing on the priest i think...because it annoy people...if somebody want to pray he can without "music"

And France....well most muslim population(10 million) is from Africa,and they remember french massacre in algeria,in Ruanda...in all ex French Colonies...thus radical islam is spreading like a Disease.

Muslim's in Germany are Maybe 5 million Turk's and many Kurd's thus muslim's from Arab states.

And also terrorist's had burned the grave of Saint in Israel(for christian's).

There is an Egyptian saying to describe a masochist who constantly chooses pain, suffering, crying, yelling and screaming at every occasion possible. It says, “They need a funeral to gratify their hunger to slap their faces.” That saying perfectly fits Arab reaction around the world to the Gaza flotilla incident. If you doubt this, just attend a funeral in the Arab world and you will see what I mean.

More and more facts are coming out about the aforementioned incident and it does not look good for those who rushed to judgment and fell for the hype. As we now know, for instance, video footage has proven that the Gaza flotilla jihadists initiated the violence against Israeli soldiers:

However, those who conspired to manufacture such a crisis know that they have won the PR war since whatever facts come out later will not be covered with the same intensity and passion of the first days following the incident. What matters to Islamist crisis seekers is that the news for several days all over the world blames Israel as a bloodthirsty rogue nation that inflicted an unjustified massacre on peaceful, unarmed humanitarians.

Muslim street demonstrations like those following the incident are staged for Western audiences; we immigrants of Middle Eastern origin understand this hype and are no longer moved by it. On the other hand, Western culture is extremely moved by this big Islamist show — the cries, the tears, the pleading, the yelling, the covert threats and above all, the mass mania. Over nothing, hoards of people in the Middle East can be easily incited to go into a fit of rage and run into the streets seeking vengeance against a Christian or a Jew who supposedly dishonored Islam.

After news of massacres to non-Muslims by Muslims, we often say “there they go again” and just go on with our lives. Christian Copts in Egypt suffer at the hands of Muslim mobs extracting vengeance in the streets after hearing a fiery sermon in their mosque by their local Imam, telling a fabricated story of Christian crimes against Islam or that a Christian man violated a Muslim woman. These stories, supported by “witnesses,” ignite violent behavior often leading to horrific tragedies. Just recently, the homes of Christians in a coastal town in Egypt were all burnt to the ground after a Friday prayer rumor. The strategy and tactics of the flotilla incident are the same. The stage is set to start the same game over and over again; the Islamists provoke Israel and keep testing its patience. To them it is just a game where a few men will die and go to heaven, but to Israel it is life or death.

What is remarkable is that supposedly well-educated and informed Westerners in positions of power are buying this jihadist propaganda. Helen Thomas of the White House Press Corps cried out that the flotilla incident was a deliberate massacre. Without investigation or reasoning, Western leftists go along with this game, much like the constantly outraged Arab street. As Rahm Emanuel said, they never want to allow a crisis go to waste. Leftist in the media are all too eager to support sick, hateful and baseless Muslim demonstrations crafted to boost their PR and promote anti-Semitism around the world. Their collaboration with Islamists in this incident has done a great disservice to the public who depend on mainstream media for their understanding of the Arab Israeli conflict.

When will the West learn Arab psychology? Whenever West Bank and Gaza Strip news become secondary or overshadowed by more pressing issues such as the economy, oil leaks and perhaps more urgent, human suffering around the world, Islamists immediately get in gear to create a crisis. In their mind, nothing should be more urgent than destroying Israel, not even human happiness, family, children or peace itself. Like the Egyptian saying, they need a funeral to be happy.

The world never learns from history. Arab and Muslim Jew-haters have perfected the art of hype, drama and dragging everyone down to their level. They are hell bent on convincing the world to hate and blame Israel. They have to resort to game playing to justify 7th century Muslim obligation to kill Jews wherever they are found; that is the commandment from Mohammed himself. Every commandment by the prophet is an obligation and the Muslim mind must deal with the travesty; they must justify terror against Jews not only to the West, but also to Muslims themselves. The jihad against Israel, the Jews, Christians, the West, the Great Satan (USA), Little Satan (Israel) etc. all must be justified. Saying it is a commandment from Allah will not pass the UN general Assembly.
Jihadist violence must be legitimized and institutionalized as a legitimate cause. Incidents must be created to justify the jihad. Mohammed had to accuse the Jews of violating a treaty to justify killing 800 Jewish men. Incidents such as the flotilla are just part of the strategy of justify jihad, violence, burning, killing and terror. It is a commandment; it must be done and if a little provocation and lying is needed, then so be it.

Just watch Arab TV and you will learn that Israel went to help in the Haiti for the purpose of harvesting organs from the Haitian earthquake victims. Israel is so evil, that it must be annihilated. The Muslim public and the World must accept aggression against Israel as self-defense. Israel is suffering from constant and relentless intimidation and invitation to unnecessary confrontation. You would think the world would know that by now.

Muslims know exactly what they should do to stop the blockade against Gaza. First, they should be sincere with themselves, not just trying to convince the world, that they want peace with Israel and adopt a live and let live view. After that, major players in the region such as Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria etc. must pressure Hamas to end the barrage of missiles against Israel and that their financial support should be linked to Palestinian willingness to accomplish peace with Israel. Israel is fighting for its survival; everyone knows that and there is no need to kid ourselves any more.

With more and more facts coming out, it has become clear that this was a set up; a PR stunt to let Muslim countries surrounding Israel keep fooling the world over and over again.

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

The term “Palestine” has conjured up many images and meanings throughout the centuries. In the Christian West, the term was synonymous for the “Promised Land,” or the “Holy Land,” that is, the Land of the Jews. Throughout the centuries, the terms “Palestine” and “Palestinian” were analogous to the terms “Israel” and “Jew.” This is quite evident from reading books, articles, newspapers, and encyclopedias. “Palestinian” was used to identify Jews living in the Holy Land as opposed to Jews living elsewhere, such as in Babylonia, Persia, Greece, Rome, or elsewhere. In fact, within Judaism there is even a Talmud (ancient composition of commentary on the Bible) that is called by historians the “Palestinian Talmud,” as opposed to the “Babylonian Talmud.”

Nevertheless, within the last forty to fifty years, a perverse and vicious transmogrification of the term “Palestine” has taken root among anti-Jews and anti-Israel haters around the globe, most notably in the Arab/Muslim world, and in the increasingly “dhimmified” European world. A name in Arabic – “Filastin” – that has no historical connotations or etymological meaning for Arabs and other Muslims – has now taken on the properties of a wholesale myth that could fill volumes of vitriolic and venomous propaganda. Indeed, the whole distortion and myth of an Arab “Palestine” has become a virtual religion unto itself.

How did this myth of a non-existent people and non-existent land of “Filastin” ever come to be? The answer lies in the tragic history of the Roman-Jewish “encounter” during the 1st and 2nd centuries, when Israel (then called Judea) was occupied by the Roman Empire.

The Jews bitterly resented being ruled by the pagan Romans, and for over a century fought to regain their independence. Twice during Roman rule, an independent Kingdom of Judea existed. First, under Herod the Great (while Augustus was emperor), and then under Herod’s grandson, Herod Agrippa, (while Claudius was emperor). Regardless, all ended in disaster when the Jews rose in revolt in 66 A.D., and fought a four year war with Rome that resulted – according to the eyewitness historian Josephus – with close to a million Jewish deaths, and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple.

Yet Judea, while conquered, remained a restive province in the Roman Empire. This changed dramatically and drastically in 132 A.D. when a Jewish warrior by the name of Simeon bar Kokhba raised another revolt against Rome. The war lasted for three years and was so intense, that the Emperor Hadrian had to recall his greatest general, Julius Severus from Britain. It took close to a dozen Roman legions to put down the revolt, but when it was finished, so was Judea. Hadrian had had enough of the Jews and their revolts and decided to rename Judea “Syria Palestina.” The name “Palestina” was chosen after the Philistines – ancient enemies of the Israelites. It was nothing more than pouring salt into the wounds of the already defeated Jews. Jerusalem’s name was not spared either and was renamed “Aelia Capitolina.” And so it appeared that the “Jewish Question” of the 1st and 2nd centuries had been “solved.” However, Jews continued to remain as a majority in their conquered land.

The situation remained static until the Arabs marched out of the Arabian desert conquering every country in sight for Allah and Muhammad. In 635 A.D., the Arabs conquered the Holy Land from Byzantium. However, it appears that the Muslims had no real interest in the land. In fact, when they entered Jerusalem, they apparently did not realize where they were, as they first called the city “Iliyas,” nothing more than an Arabicized form of the Latin “Aelia” (which, as previously stated, was substituted for the name of Jerusalem). In an ironic twist of fate, it was a Jew who had converted to Islam that pointed out to the Caliph Omar where he and his occupation army were now standing; namely, Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. It was then that the Arabs decided to call the city “Al Quds” and “Beit al Muqdas.” Once again, these are nothing but Arabicized terms from the original Hebrew: “Ha-Qodesh” and “Beit ha-Miqdash” which respectively mean “the Holy (City)” and “the Holy House” (i.e., “Holy Temple”).

The Arab-Muslims now called the land “Jund Filastin” (Province of Palestine) – a direct borrowing from the Greco-Roman term. But because Arabic has no “p” sound in it language, “Palestina” became “Filastin.” Indeed, every name of every so-called “Arab village” in Israel is nothing more than an Arabic perversion of the original Hebrew, Greek or Latin names for a city. (To name just two: “Habrun” – from the Hebrew “Hevron”, and “Nablus” –Nea Polis, (“New City”) built on the ruins of biblical Shechem.) The Arab Muslim disinterest in the land was so great that with the exception of the city of Ramleh (perhaps built on the Jewish ruins of the city Ramathaim Zophim, according to some archaeologists) no other city was ever built by the Arabs or the other Muslim conquerors. Even more ironic, it was Ramleh that became the provincial capital of “Filastin.” Jerusalem played absolutely no significance with the major exception of the building of Masjid Al-Aqsa (the Mosque of Al Aqsa) and Qubbat as-Sahra (the Dome of the Rock) over the ruins of the Jewish Temple. And the reason for building these structures was to show the superiority of Islam over Judaism, and to be in “competition” with the Christian Holy Sepulchre which had been built nearby, centuries earlier.

Nothing changed over the centuries as the denuded land of “Palestine” went from one conqueror to another. Finally, in 1917, Britain wrested the land from the Ottomans and after promising the Jews a homeland in their ancestral country, the League of Nations awarded a Mandate to the British which extended over both the western and eastern banks of the Jordan River. It was at this point that the term “Palestine” was revived as a quasi-political entity ruled by a British governor.

While the Jews began to call their newspapers, charities, and organizations such names as the “Palestine Post” and the “United Palestine Appeal,” the Arabs eschewed the term as being “Jewish” and “Zionist.” For them, they were Muslims first, and “Southern Syrians” second. Indeed, many an Arab politician and historian denied that there was ever a country called “Palestine.” To name the amount of Arab political figures and historians who stated this would require an article all by itself. Suffice to say that Arabs such as the late Hashemite monarch Hussein “Chairman” Arafat, and noted Arab historian Philip K. Hitti, have all candidly admitted that no such country as “Palestine” ever existed. In fact, the latter, while appearing in front of a January 11, 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in Washington, D.C. stated “[T]here is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not.” The late King Hussein, who knew about artificial entities (i.e., Transjordan – now “Jordan”) said that “[T]he truth is that Jordan is Palestine, and Palestine is Jordan.” He said this on more than one occasion in the 19070s and as late as December 26, 1981 in an interview with the Paris based Arabic newspaper An-Nahar Al Arabi (“The Arabic Daily”). Many other Hashemites (past and present) have made similar statements. Indeed, without the help of Churchill and Britain, there would never have been a “Hashemite entity” on the East Bank of the Jordan created in 1922 and carved out of the original “Palestine Mandate” for the Jewish National Home. And in one of the most candid admissions ever made, Zuhair Muhsin, little known leader of the PLO splinter gang known as “Al Sa’iqa” (The Storm) and backed by Syria, said in a March 31, 1977 interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw:

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.

And of course, there was “Chairman” Arafat who in a 1974 interview with The New Republic stated: “What you call Jordan is actually Palestine.”

Regardless, until the founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964, “Palestine” and “Palestinian” had no meaning for the Arabs. As an aside, the fact that the PLO was created in 1964 by the League of Arab States and not after the June “Six Day War” of 1967, is telling enough that Ahmad Shuqayri (original founder of the PLO), and his successor Yasser Arafat, were looking for the total extermination of Israel, while Jordan already had the “occupied territories” of the “West Bank,” and Egypt had the “Gaza Strip.” For them and for the PLO (or PA of today), “Palestine” is just a part of the “Arab Muslim national homeland” that has to be liberated from the “infidel” Jews. As late as 1967, even the UN did not refer to the term “Palestinians” merely calling them “refugees.” (Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967.) However, as the late 1960s turned into the 1970s, the historical terminology of “Palestine” began to be turned upside down, and hijacked by the Arabs. It now became terms synonymous with Arabs, but in reality was only a weapon in the fight to extirpate Israel from the world.

The facts are undeniable. “Palestine” has no meaning in Greek, Latin, Arabic, or English. It is a general fact that a people give their name to a country, not vice-versa. Thus, the Arabs call their homeland, “Jazirat al-Arab” or “Island of the Arabians.” The Jews call their land Israel because they were called Israelites; Israel in Hebrew meaning “to strive with God.”

Similarly, it was called Judah or Judea after the tribe of Judah (meaning “praise” in Hebrew). Ironically, it is only one language in which the term “Palestine” has a meaning, and that language is Hebrew. The name translated as “Philistia” in the Holy Bible comes from the Hebrew “Peleshet” which means nothing more than “land of the Philistines.” Contrary to Arab propaganda, the Philistines were a non-Semitic, Indo-European people who migrated to what is now Gaza. Historians believe that these “sea peoples” originated in the Aegean area of what is now Crete.

In conclusion, one can only imagine if Hadrian had never changed the name of Israel from Judea to Palestina. We might very well have seen a “Judea Liberation Organization” instead of a “Palestine Liberation Organization” and we might very well be hearing the mantra of the “inalienable rights of the Judean Arab people.” At the same time, if Hadrian had changed the name of Judea to Mars, we would be hearing of the “Martian Arab people.” Of course, this sounds absurd, but not any more absurd than the fictitious mythical land and people of “Palestine.”

Israel would be well advised to learn from the cruel fates of history which has a way of repeating itself. Judea did not exist alongside “Palestina” after Hadrian’s destruction in the 2nd century. Similarly today, in the 21st century, it is impossible for Israel to exist “side by side in peace” with a “Palestine” that seeks to replicate and complete Hadrian’s war against the Jews. One state or the other can exist, but never both. Israel is a historical reality. Arab “Palestine” is an artificial invention. Inevitably, a “two state solution” will lead to nothing less than a final solution for the state of Israel, and perhaps for the Jews of the world. It is time for Israel to take a courageous stand and face the painful facts of reality – and history.

In 1839, the Russian novelist Mikhail Lermontov published A Hero of our Time, the tale of a melancholy romantic by the name of Grigory Pechorin. In the preface to the book, Lermontov explains that his protagonist is “a portrait, but not of one man. It is a portrait built up of our own generation’s vices.” Pechorin is presented as a self-indulgent cynic, prone to bouts of dejection, world-weariness and pre-Existential nihilism. “What do I expect from the future?” he asks, and replies, “nothing at all.”

It was my great privilege to meet recently another kind of “hero of our time,” one who has nothing in common with Pechorin with whom he differs in two crucial ways. To begin with, he most certainly is not a representative figure of our pusillanimous epoch but a singular presence, very much in the courageous mold of Geert Wilders, who holds the era to account. And secondly, there is nothing of the cynic about him; on the contrary, he is a man notable for his sense of justice, crusading energy, and his belief in the eventual triumph of the truth—a man who expects everything from the future.

I’m speaking of Philippe Karsenty, who delivered a talk in Montreal on October 13 of this year dealing with the infamous Mohammad al-Dura hoax perpetrated by France 2 TV. Karsenty, deputy mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine and director of the Paris-based analysis firm Media-Ratings, has become justly celebrated as the man who single-handedly defied the entire French media, political establishment and intellectual synod which closed ranks to defend the official version of what happened on September 30, 2000 at the Netzarim junction in Gaza. The episode and its aftermath are by this time widely known, but a brief recapitulation would not be out of place.

Jamal al-Dura, a native of Gaza, and his 12-year-old son Mohammad, were filmed supposedly caught in a crossfire between Palestinian operatives and Israeli soldiers at the Netzarim junction, approximately five kilometers from Gaza City. According to Israeli-French journalist Charles Enderlin, France 2 TV’s Jerusalem correspondent who edited and narrated the clip, and his cameraman Talal Abu Rhama who bore witness to the event, the Israelis deliberately targeted the two victims for a full forty-five minutes, wounding the father and killing the son. An expurgated version of the film circulated around the globe, and the international media, with scarcely an exception, condemned the Israelis as child killers. With the collusion of the Western press, the Palestinians had invented yet another martyr to grace their faux hagiography.

Indeed, it did not take long before Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish published his Requiem for Muhammad al-Dura, a piece of versified hogwash which became an instant hit and continues to this day to resonate. “Mohammad,” Darwish writes, “hunters are gunning down angels, and the only witness/is a camera’s eye…” Postage stamps commemorating the event were issued throughout the Islamic world, monuments were erected, the Second Intifada which had only just begun took on a second wind, journalist Daniel Pearl was beheaded in revenge and Israeli citizens were murdered in the streets by Palestinian suicide bombers. No one doubted the official story of Israeli barbarism and Palestinian innocence. Even the Israeli political and military establishment did not contest world opinion and issued a hurried apology. But there was a serious problem with the universally accepted transcript of the “firefight.” The only significant “shooting” was done by the camera crew. It was soon revealed that France 2 TV possessed 27 minutes of tape but released only 59 seconds worth of material. Enderlin, who was not present at the Netzarim shootout but justified his reportage by saying that “the image corresponded to the reality of the situation,” insisted that portions of the film were too painful to reveal, enabling him to bury the outtakes. This, of course, rendered him complicit in what became a worldwide campaign of slander and disinformation, a modern blood libel in everything but name. A subsequent investigation conducted by the Israeli Defense Force arrived at the conclusion that Israeli fire, coming from an oblique position, could not have produced the round bullet holes that pocked the wall against which the al-Duras were crouching. A forensic team from Germany, which examined the evidence in March 2002, went one better, determining from angles and trajectories that the soldiers manning the Israeli outpost could not possibly have shot the al-Duras, at least not in our familiar Euclidean world dominated by the laws of geometry and ballistics.

Karsenty entered the fray shortly afterward, airing his rebuttal on his Web site, and soon found himself on the wrong end of a libel suit. In a partial reprise of the notorious Dreyfus scandal, the French Court of First Instance, despite the recommendation of the public prosecutor that it rule in Karsenty’s favour, convicted the defendant of libeling France 2 TV and Charles Enderlin. (To compound the mockery, the government of Nicolas Sarkozy later awarded Enderlin the Legion of Honor.) Karsenty vowed to continue the fight and has recently won a second decision, of which more later.

Karsenty has prepared a slide/video display with which he accompanies the lectures he has given in many cities around the world. The evidence he has marshaled from various sources, including the eighteen minutes of tape France 2 was compelled by the court to reveal, definitively reduces the entire anti-Israel media offensive regarding al-Dura to the level of abject farce. (What happened to the other nine minutes remain a mystery.) Frame after frame reveals the depth of ignominy which Israel’s besmirchers were more than willing to plumb.

We see the almost festive atmosphere on the road prior to the first burst of fire; the man struck in the leg who is then bundled the wrong way on a stretcher with his weight upon the injury; the ambulance stationed close by, as if in readiness, begin to move before the “wounded” man has even fallen to the ground; Rhama’s testimony that hundreds of shots were fired at the al-Duras although the wall behind them shows only eight bullet holes; the claim that the elder Dura took twelve bullets, which would have sufficed to kill him several times over, apart from the fact that he did not budge as he was supposedly being shot and neither a trace of blood nor a single wound was visible on his body; the migrating blood stain (!) on the bandage on his right arm, displaced from one day to the other when he was photographed on his hospital bed, and many more such countervailing details.

There was a time problem as well. Apparently the short journey from the Netzarim junction to the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, probably not more than half an hour, must have crossed several time zones. As Nidra Poller explains, Arlette Chabot, news director for the network, was caught off guard during a brief trial recess when she was informed that the dead child identified as Mohammad al-Dura was brought to the hospital in the late morning, while the alleged shooting occurred in mid-afternoon. Making the motions of someone who turns back a clock, Madame Chabot explained there was “some kind of time change that day in Gaza.”

Karsenty reproduces this strange temporal hiccup in his report, adding the precise times as being between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. and quoting the Palestinian biometrician on duty who deposed that the dead child was not Mohammad al-Dura and in fact was several years older.

As if this were not enough, Karsenty exhibits ten seconds of initially suppressed footage from the France 2 TV film, after the newscaster tells us that “the child is dead,” in which the boy moves and lifts his head, arm and leg. Karsenty then wonders whether we have come to believe “that a ‘dead’ child can move.” It seems that the effect of the media on the structures of our mental life may actually have impinged upon our very perceptual abilities, so that we no longer see what we are seeing, disbelieving the very evidence of our senses in our refusal to recognize images that violate our biases. As Eliyahu m’Tsiyon writes, “Here we have more testimony to the power of suggestion in a situation of ongoing indoctrination and emotion.”

Although the “sense of facts,” Theodore Dalrymple comments in The New Vichy Syndrome, “is not in the facts themselves, but in the mind that assesses them”—a perspectival truism if ever there was one—it endures as the intellectual and moral duty of the decent individual to separate what is a gross (mis)interpretation from a clear and absolute datum. A fact is not always or necessarily a function of parallax or desire or preference and Mohammad al-Dura is not Lazarus. No doubt some viewers, presented with the concluding portion of the tape, wanted so badly to see the youngster killed by the Israelis that they could not see the boy was quite alive, and could not arrive at the obvious conclusion that the entire episode was rehearsed and staged by the Palestinians with the compliance of French TV. As Karsenty points out, everyone involved in the scene, except the traduced Israeli soldiers, were “actors.”

Karsenty is a modern day Émile Zola, although without Zola’s international fame as one of France’s most prominent writers and without the support Zola could rely on from those who shared his moral outrage at the French military’s scapegoating of Alfred Dreyfus on false charges of treason. Undeterred, Karsenty launched his J’accuse at the French media juggernaut and its enablers in the corridors of power, the judiciary, the public and the massed intelligentsia which had rushed to convict Israel of a fictive crime on tainted evidence. Karsenty had to contend with President Jacques Chirac’s pressure on the court to acquit France 2, with the initial verdict of defamation pronounced against him, and with the fact that he was effectively on his own, abandoned even by those who might have been considered his natural allies. The Israeli government, for example, wished only to wash its hands of the entire affair and kept a frowning distance, apparently recommending that its ambassadors and consuls give Karsenty a wide berth. Even a sympathetic compatriot like Bernard Henri-Lévy, a member of the distinguished school of New Philosophers and an acclaimed author, was obviously reluctant to risk the prospect of public and professional ostracism and did not come to Karsenty’s assistance. “I am completely alone in France,” Karsenty said.

Despite his isolation and the manifold obstacles raised against his quest for justice, Karsenty persisted and in May 2008 the result of his first trial was overturned by the Paris Court of Appeals which declared he was not in defamation, but went no further into the case against France 2 and Enderlin. This remains something of a Pyrrhic victory and augurs further “trials” ahead. That, according to the Mena News Agency, there was only a “petite dizaine de journalistes” (a handful of ten journalists) in the courtroom illustrates the indifference to the truth demonstrated by the French media.

To add to his tribulations, he will once again have to confront and deconstruct the frankly despicable Charles Enderlin who has published a new book, Un Enfant Est Mort (A Child Is Dead), in which he announces his good faith and embarks upon an orgy of self-vindication, claiming that his enemies wish “to demolish an inconvenient journalist” (“abbatre un journaliste qui dérange”). Enderlin can expect reinforcement from the leftist French and Israeli press and probably, to some extent, from the Israeli diplomatic corps as well. As Karsenty says, “Charles Enderlin s’est érigé une muraille d’amis qui le protègent de la critique” (“Charles Enderlin has erected a wall of friends that protects him from criticism.”) The fact that the doctor who testified in support of Enderlin’s blood libel, Raphy Walden, is married to the daughter of Israeli president Shimon Peres can’t hurt either.

The brazen impropriety of defending the indefensible is as undeniable as it is disheartening. Karsenty, however, is undaunted and has now taken his show on the road, convinced he will ultimately prevail in bringing the incontestable facts to the attention of a jaded and skeptical world. “My goal,” Karsenty writes, “is to have France 2, the entire French society, and, finally, the whole world, admit that the al Dura story is a hoax” and “to identify an emblematic symbol of Jew-hatred and Israel bashing.” This will be a formidable job. As National Post columnist Barbara Kay ruefully acknowledges, “such myths can only be countered by truth-tellers, but the principal truth-teller in the case of the Muhammad Al Dura story, Philippe Karsenty, has found that where libels against Jews are concerned, truth-telling is an uphill slog.”

If we believe that the Palestinian dramatis personae and their media accomplices have been chastened by the exposure of their clandestine purposes, we should think again. The latest piece of theater in the Palestinian repertory involves a rock-throwing incident in Silwan in East Jerusalem, in which an Israeli vehicle with its two occupants (interestingly, a father and son) was ambushed by Palestinian youths, some of them hooded. In attempting to escape the barrage, the driver hit and lightly injured one of the rock throwers. (A second youth brushed by the swerving car was plainly unhurt and ran off.) Naturally, a gaggle of photographers was conveniently on stand-by to record its congenial narrative of an Israeli settler going on a violent rampage against Palestinian children protesting the “occupation.” Following the usual propaganda line, the French News Agency AFP informs us that “A Jewish settler leader runs over two stone-throwing Palestinian boys.” (The “settler leader,” incidentally, is David Be’eri, director of the ir David archeological foundation currently excavating biblical Jerusalem’s City of David.) Karsenty clearly has his work cut out for him, but there is no question that he is equal to the task.

Philippe Karsenty is a man who has put the timid and the calumnious, the liars and hypocrites and cringers among us, to shame and amply merits the title of “a hero of our time”—not because he personifies it but because, like far too few among us, he challenges its myths, evasions and mendacities. He has understood that the storm of antisemitism and anti-Israelism shaking the globe is only the other face of the growing drift toward the appeasement of Islam and the surrender to the advancing armies of an alien god, with Israel as the first burnt offering. And he has targeted the media—of which France 2 TV is only one exemplar—as the chief collaborators in the war against the Jewish state and, indeed, against the moral principles of integrity and rectitude that sustain professional responsibility. Karsenty has, in effect, taken the temper of the age to court. Israel needs more like him. And so does the truth.

Welcome to the premiere of FrontPage Close-Up with Jamie Glazov, a new video series of provocative interviews with the leading thinkers and newsmakers of our time. Our first interview is with a hero of our modern era — Philippe Karsenty, the French media analyst who exposed the Mohammed Al-Dura Fraud, which involved France 2, a French television network, broadcasting staged footage of Israeli soldiers allegedly killing a 12-year old Palestinian, Mohammed al-Dura, during a gun battle in Gaza in 2000.

A Jordan Valley Arab farmer has exposed the tactic of leftists accepting Arab claims and falsely accusing Jews of attacking Arabs. He admitted that the “burning sheep” libel against Jews was meant to disguise his own blunder of losing control of a brush fire.

Last week, left-wing groups in Israel and counterparts in the United States spread a story that that an Arab shepherd “saw settlers light a fire in the field where his herd was grazing, burning to death 12 pregnant ewes, and then drive away."

The story of the sheep burning was so extreme that the police immediately doubted the claim. The supposed burning of the sheep occurred on the Sabbath, when observant Jews, the usual scapegoats, are forbidden to drive.

The Arab farmer, Samir Bani Fadel, claimed that four armed Jews approached him, chased him away, set fire to his field – which also is forbidden on Sabbath – and drove away as the fire spread and burned to death 12 pregnant ewes while injuring others.

Regardless of the doubts, the left-wing B'Tselem and Yesh Din human rights group rushed to allege that the supposed attack was another one of hundreds of supposed acts of vandalism by Jews against Arabs.

New York-based writer Philip Weiss promptly reprinted the libel on his Mondoweiss blog, and the image of sheep being cruelly burned aroused sympathy for Arabs and anger against Jews. “It was an awful sight,” the farmer said. "I've lost at least $12,000."

The Palestinian Authority called on the international community to pressure Israel to stop "settler violence.”

The tale began to unravel when Arabs pointed their fingers at residents of Itamar, an easy target as it is a religious community, but located almost an hour’s drive from the scene of the fire. The story then was changed, with the blame being placed on the closer community of Maaleh Ephraim, most of whose residents are professionals and who almost never have been accused of any activities against Arabs.

Fadel finally admitted to police the whole story was a lie and that he was responsible for the fire, which he set to burn thorns before it spread beyond control. Blaming Jews not only would have saved him from the embarrassment of having burned his own sheep, it also would allow him to claim damages from the government while being hailed as a hero among Palestinian Authority Arabs and left-wing anti-Zionists.

Hundreds of accusations against Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria have been leveled in recent years, usually in claims that Jews attack or destroy olive trees, although evidence has been produced that in most cases the Arabs have simply pruned their trees, counted on lack of agricultural knowledge on the part of the media and leftwing groups, and then accused Jews of damaging them. Olive trees look hacked when they are pruned and months later, the supposedly damaged orchards have been seen to be full of fruit.

Another tactic has been to instigate violence, especially on the Shabbat when Jews are forbidden to take pictures, and then accuse Jews of attacking them.

Yossi Dagan, adviser to the Samaria Regional Council, commented, “There is a system among left-wing groups who campaign for financial contributions from foreign countries, many of whom are hostile to Israel. They use European Union money, which has reached billions of dollars the past few years. Many of the workers for left-wing groups enjoy high salaries and use reports from so-called human rights organizations and then travel throughout Judea and Samaria and blow up or change facts to spread libel against Jews.”

Dagan explained that Jews are blamed for burning cars in Arab villages when in fact they are damaged as a result of fights among Arabs.

David Ha’Ivri, who heads the Shomron (Samaria) Liaison Office that handles public relations for the Jewish communities in Samaria, said, "We have a very difficult task up against a bunch of well-funded NGOs like B’Tselem and Rabbis for Human Rights, whose agenda is to hurt the image of the State of Israel and the Jewish residents of Yehuda and Shomron (Judea and Samaria).

“Their slanderous claims are always given the benefit of the doubt by international media agencies who jump at an opportunity to project a Satanic image of the ‘evil Jewish settlers.’ The events reported in this story are a perfect example of blood libel promoted by NGOs who claim to be humanitarian and peace activists.”

Via www.FreeMiddleEast.com:
The Palestinian Authority is accused of corruption by many but receives more humanitarian aid per capita from the international community than any other country in the world. The billions of dollars that are meant for schools, hospitals and infrastructure have been spent on luxury villas, casinos and payments to terrorists.

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

''you do not represent Palestine as much as we do. Do not forget one thing : there is no Palestinian people, no Palestinian entity, there is only Syria ! You are an integral part of Syria. Therefore it is we, the Syrian authorities, who are the real representatives of the Palestinian people.'' Syrian President, Hafiz al-Asad, 1976. During a meeting with PLO leaders.

You guys need to really not pay heed to these people. Pardon me if I am wrong but I met some Israeli people here who were tourists who mentioned to me that 'Palestinians' are actually Syrians and Jordanians by ethnicity and hence don't represent any imaginary land called Palestine, which is a historical fact. Am I correct?

The reason why these separatists and land grabbers get attention in both your and our countries is simply because we give them what they want--- media attention. Don't clamp down on media since it is a democracy, but simply hold a meeting and ask the local Israeli news channels to simply ignore any noise that 'Palestinians' make. Also be specific to international media not to enter zones of conflict.

__________________'Where ignorance is the master, there is no possibility of real peace'.--- ཏཱ་ལའི་བླ་མ་་